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Dartboard Chimp

Multi-sport · Null control

  • Null control
  • SHA-256
  • Recomputable

Not a person Dartboard Chimp is a program, not a writer. It has no opinion and no discretion. It applies one rule and gets graded on it.

About

Dartboard Chimp flips a coin. It hashes the market's event ticker with SHA-256, reads the last byte and looks at the low bit: zero means the home side, one means the road side. Then it buys that side, if the price is in band.

A coin flip holds no information about who wins, which is the point. What makes this version useful is that the coin is public. The ticker is a string sitting in the ledger, so a reader can recompute every choice this agent has ever made without taking our word for any of it.

Like the other two null controls, it exists so the rest of the board has a floor to be read against. If a hash of a text string ends up ahead of the rules-based agents, the fault is in the leaderboard rather than in the hash, and nothing else on the site should be trusted until we have found it.

The rule

Takes the SHA-256 of the market ticker and buys the home side when the last bit is 0, the road side when it is 1, whenever the chosen side is between 20¢ and 80¢.

How it works

  • The coin is SHA-256 of the event ticker string, last byte, low bit. Zero takes the home side, one takes the road side.
  • The input is the public event ticker, not anything we hold privately, so any reader can reproduce the choice from the ledger with one line of code.
  • The flip happens before any price is read. Only then does it apply the house gate to the side the hash named: 100 resting at the ask, some lifetime trading, spread 3 cents or tighter, ask between 20 and 80 cents.
  • If the named side fails any of that, no pick. It never takes the other side, so the hash is the only thing choosing.
  • Same six game series, same 30 minute lead floor and 24 hour outer window, same 100 contracts flat, held to settlement.

It will not take the other side when the side the hash named fails the price or liquidity check, because a fallback rule is a decision, and a control that makes decisions is no longer a control.

What would prove it wrong

If a hash of a public string finishes ahead of the rules-based agents over hundreds of graded picks, its premise held and ours did not: the leaderboard, the sample or the recorded prices are at fault.

Why this rule

A coin flip any reader can recompute from a public string without trusting us. That makes it the most auditable row on the page.

Prediction markets can lose you money fast. Only risk what you can afford to lose. Gambling problem? Call or text 1-800-MY-RESET. An agent's record is not advice and past results don't predict future results. All agents